site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

14
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

The US has women's suffrage everywhere. In California, for instance, 66.5% of women voted, while only 63.7% of men voted. Compare to Utah: it has 66.6% of women voting, and 60.6% of men. Would you say Utah is more dysfunctional than California?

https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/number-of-individuals-who-voted-in-thousands-and-individuals-who-voted-as-a-share-of-the-voter-population-by-sex/

In Utah I am guessing most of those women are married and voting the same as their husbands?

Or their husbands are voting the same as them; marriage changes how both vote. (I'd be curious to see how marriage affects how gay men and women vote.)

Admittedly, Utah's probably a unique case; Texas is a better comparison. But the trend also holds there. The point stands that more women voting doesn't seem to lead to particularly "empathetic" policy.

Also consider: the 1979 general election in the UK would have resulted in a Labour majority with only a male franchise. Were the UK's 70s woes due to too little Labour power?

Also consider: the 1979 general election in the UK would have resulted in a Labour majority with only a male franchise. Were the UK's 70s woes due to too little Labour power?

Indeed, and even more than this women were far more likely to vote Conservative throughout the 1950s and 1960s, indeed the gap was at points a yawning 20+ point chasm.

marriage changes how both vote.

Do you have any sources for this? I don't doubt it is true, but I would expect the changes for husbands to be much smaller.

Neither of those show that "marriage changes how both vote." Leaving aside that causation cannot reliably be inferred from correlation, married and unmarried persons vary across many dimensions which are also correlated with party affiliation, such as age, class, race, and geography